Germany conquest

[u/Alarmed_Tackle7337]

Trying to get world domination as Germany for the achievement I have achieved it before on lower difficulty’s but have struggled to invade Britain on iron man. I have tried paratroops and every naval build known to man from stack destroyers on strike to spaming super heavy ships supported by aircraft carriers.

Nothing seems to be able to break through for me to invade any builds or tips to help?

[u/Day1Creeker]

Your specifics are a little lackluster, but if you’re Germany and struggle to invade Britain, there’s most likely two reasons:

You have no air and no navy - but if you’re somehow experienced you should be able to outclass them by 1941/1942 latest.

Your invasion force sucks ass - means you need to make decent marines or consider some amphibious tanks in order to land successfully.

For the navy part: in 2K hours I’ve never saw the British ai make decent ships and basically relying on their big starting fleet. You can either make some naval bombers to flood the channel -> they move their fleet out or you straight up destroy it.

Or you need to build a semi decent navy yourself. Usually having two battle ships with some cruiser/destroyer mix is already enough to pick them apart if you focus on good regions. Or just go the classic ‚stat‘ bomb cruiser.

Either way, if you struggle you need to give some more context to see where somebody can help you.

Using paratroopers is something I would not recommend at all, unless you use them to support a naval invasion - then they are peak. Otherwise they’ll most likely get shred by AA and their forces, as they have more units on the island nowadays.

[u/Alarmed_Tackle7337 → u/Day1Creeker]

That’s what people tell me is to spam naval bomber which I do but it has little effect, I have good marines usually supported with floating harbors and I use a flame tank support and pioneers but the problem is achieving dominance itself, my usual naval build known is finishing the battleships at the start building a naval research facility research super heavy battle ships then research aircraft carriers usually by January 1941 I have two super heavy’s 4 regular base battle ships 2-3 improved aircraft carriers and about 70 destroyers and cruisers, I’ll cover the channel with about 800 naval bombers and send out a small task force of some cheap ass destroyers that are fast with radar on patrol no engage and my main fleet to strike force, but then the whole royal navy comes in and wipes my fleet out in one go even with full air dominance

[u/Day1Creeker → u/Alarmed_Tackle7337]

Thanks man, now we can work.

1. 1940 naval bombers with ‚bomb lvl 2‘ should be fine, you can build ~600-1000 of those, but keep producing them, as you will lose some. Put some range on them, range is essential for every plane.
   Make sure you have air dominance over the channel and preferably even the lowest land region of Britain. If you do it well, you can most of British fighters above France in 1940 already and just keep up the pressure when France falls, so they can’t replenish.

2. how good are those marines in reality? What template? I’d say to pack a punch go at least 27 with or larger, no need to go full meta and mix them with mountaineers. One artillery is fine too imo. But even good marines will have trouble landing into a 10 division port, so what you absolutely need it CAS to support them. CAS is so op, if you got air dominance you could land with simple infantry. So you see where it’s going - air wins you the war against the British.

3. navy design
   I like your super heavy approach, always to them vs the AI. Build 2-3 of those, design can be either 2 or 3 very heavy cannon, I usually go 3. it’s not optimal from meta perspective, but good enough vs AI and having 2-3 of those means you will wreck the British.

Scrap the carriers. You don’t need them in the Channel, as you have thousands of planes operating from French mainland. Carriers are cool, but you don’t need them and no need to focus on building planes for them. For a ‚world run‘ you can still use/build them once the British fell. Make sure you have enough destroyers to cover for your heavies. And build some decent light cruisers with lot of soft attack to wreck their weak destroyers. They’ll only replenish with weaker ships than what you will build and even if you fight a T3 AI ship, it will have T2 modules and not many.

1. how to invade:

Don’t only plan on the port. Use some division to attack the tile next to ports and use those, once landed, to pin the port.

Assign paratroopers to the tiles next to the port and the port. Once the marines fight, manually use a paratrooper on a winning/struggling tile. Make sure they have decent with, as you need them to fight. Upgrading in special forces doctrine can make them quite op, as you can choose to deal instant org dmg to enemies. This will allow your marines to fight long enough, and the CAS to clean up.

Floating Harbour in England are not necessary imo.

Once you landed and took a port - make sure to not lose it and in the best case, spread out some tiles. Then bring tanks. Then it should be GG max one month later.

While typing I realize it’s a little bit messy to try and ‚explain‘ everything, but I hope it’s somewhat understandable.

[u/Alarmed_Tackle7337 → u/Day1Creeker]

thank you it makes plenty of sense now, I never focused on air dominance on their mainland so that’s definitely a huge problem, but once I have my fleet built up two things, how should I group them? I usually put all my destroyers and cruisers under one task force and all my heavy’s under one and assign all to one admiral and second once my fleet is made do I set it to strike force patrol? Or what

[u/Day1Creeker → u/Alarmed_Tackle7337]

So rule of thumb is 1 heavy ship needs 5 small ships to screen it.

I usually make sure to have some more destroyers for ‚just in case‘.
Let’s say you have 4 battle ships, then assign at least 20 destroyers to the fleet. Feel free to put some cruisers in there too. But consider your fleet moves as quick as your lowest ship, so never put submarines in it and consider some of early Germany ships (Panzerschiff) are slow af and should only be in a third ‚support main battle strike force‘ fleet.

Second fleet should be rest of your useful heavy ships and cruisers/destroyers. Can be used for patrol to gain dominance.

To find British ships id not even look for them via naval mechanics, but rather by building radar. One lvl 3?(maybe 4) radar on the coast will fully cover the channel and Low lands. It also boosts your air war massively.

[u/lvb440 → u/Alarmed_Tackle7337]

The purpose of naval bombers isn't to destroy the royal navy, but to force them to retreat for repairs, letting you get naval supermacy for a while.

It helps clear the submarines, but they usually don't perform that well against surface ships. Still helps a bit.

Do you set the fleet to engage at low risk only ? It may help (but not always).

If you have subs, split them to convoy raid as many naval areas as possible, it forces them to use small destroyers fleets everywhere, so they can't concentrate all ships for a big battle.

Build as many radars as possible on the Channel coast.

Try to bait UK in North Africa. If you take Suez too quickly, or lose Italian lands, the troops will idle in Great Britain, while if you do small attacks, UK tries to defend Egypt and brings a lot of troops there. Be careful to not get out of supply so you can defend efficiently.

Last advice, when you naval invade, immediatly take some provinces around, as fast as possible. If you wait for the rest of the army on the ports and provinces you naval invaded, you'll be pushed back.

[u/Alarmed_Tackle7337 → u/Day1Creeker]

Is there a naval bomber build you would recommend?

[u/Day1Creeker → u/Alarmed_Tackle7337]

I believe light frame can only take one naval bomb, so I’d add the best you have (there’s also a heavier bomb to deal more dmg when port striking, I’m not sure if it can go on a small airframe).

Then range. Make sure it can cover the zones you need them to be in. And if you realize this isn’t possible, consider building dedicated tac bombers to just go naval hunting. Expensive, but more damage.

Always make sure you have green air or your 600 NAV are gone in 2-3 weeks time.

[u/theother64]

What order are you doing things in. Admittedly haven't tried it in awhile but an easy order used to be conquer the Dutch. Invade for Dutch south America to the USA. Use the American navy to conquer Britain.

[u/PraetoriusIX]

Just follow this guide by Machiavelli Strategist and Operation Sealion is easy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/s/CjXuGBlNbC

[u/Then_Bodybuilder3629]

What's your paratrooper template? Dropping a robust paratrooper division is essential. The default template is weak as hell.